Anonymous
It is indeed perplexing. The Bush administration provided no meaningful answer to this question. The 9/11 Commission indicated that it was done for "safety" reasons and chose not to elaborate. Airplane parts in a heap of other metals, glass, and dirt can't pose much of a safety problem. So it logically follows that there must have been some other reason.
In situations such as this, the crucial question is: who would benefit from this decision? Well, in general, who benefits from disruption of a crime scene? Yes. The criminal or criminals.
But, wait, did Osama Bin Laden (The Uber-Criminal) make the decision to disrupt the crime scene and lose valuable evidence forever? Uh, no. He couldn't have made that decision. After all, the Army Corps did the work and Osama didn't have any authority over our army.
Well then...who made the decision that benefited the criminals? The answer is: Dick Cheney (with George W. Bush's tacit and delegated approval). Could such valuable evidence be removed so quickly from the greatest crime scene in American history without approval from the executive branch? No. In fact, Dick Cheney openly admitted that he ordered the clearance of the airplane parts. In fact, the planes used to haul the metal were U.S. Army warehouse planes. Cheney later indicated that he made the order to "out of respect to the victims." This makes no sense at all, does it?
(Parenthetically, Norm Pineta, the acting Secretary of Transportation on 9/11/01, testified before the 9/11 Commission under oath that he was in a room with Cheney when an Air Force valet came in and reported to Cheney that an unidentifiable "missile or plane" was en route to the Pentagon. This was after it was already known that planes had hit the World Trade Center. Secretary Pineta testified that Cheney ordered the valet to "stand down" and not act. The valet, in a state of understandable astonishment, asked for clarification and Cheney "snapped at him" (Pineta's testimony words) and told him that the order had not changed. We can ask: why? The American public didn't ask why really....and the press didn't ask why...but that doesn't make the question less poignant. But I digress.)
So if the executive branch made the decision to disrupt the crime scene we can conclude that either they were grossly negligent (not a great legacy) or that they benefited in some way by the disruption of the crime scene and the confiscation and disposal of crucial evidence. Oddly enough, as incompetent as many in that administration were, I tend to discard the grossly negligent option. Cheney is a very intelligent man. Moreover, there must have been some others in the sequence of decision to action that would have mentioned that the evidence was being disrupted. No, he knew. So how did he and the administration benefit?
The answer to that last question is: we don't know. It's unclear. We know for a fact that the only non-military plane flight allowed in the ensuing 24 hours was a private plane that transported several of the Bin Laden's in the US to Saudi Arabia based upon Bush's direct orders. We know for a fact that a cadre within the administration consisting at the top of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, was hellbent from the inauguration (and earlier) to invade Iraq. Could Cheney have seen the damage and noted a precious opportunity to parlay the national fervor into a focus on Iraq?
I would like to think that Cheney and his cronies had no malicious role in 9/11. However, even if one doesn't commit a murder, doesn't disrupting the murder scene and consciously removing evidence make you complicit in the crime in some way?
The airplane parts/metals are gone forever. They were briskly converted into scrap metal and sold overseas. No pictures are known to exist. The removal of the metal was done under military cover (i.e. no press, no cameras, etc.) in the midst of total chaos. The evidence is gone forever. But why? Someone knows. But until and unless that someone speaks up, we are stuck in the dark. I think we owe it to our nation and to the families of the victims and firefighters to know all there is to know about that horrid crime. Why didn't Cheney agree with me?
In situations such as this, the crucial question is: who would benefit from this decision? Well, in general, who benefits from disruption of a crime scene? Yes. The criminal or criminals.
But, wait, did Osama Bin Laden (The Uber-Criminal) make the decision to disrupt the crime scene and lose valuable evidence forever? Uh, no. He couldn't have made that decision. After all, the Army Corps did the work and Osama didn't have any authority over our army.
Well then...who made the decision that benefited the criminals? The answer is: Dick Cheney (with George W. Bush's tacit and delegated approval). Could such valuable evidence be removed so quickly from the greatest crime scene in American history without approval from the executive branch? No. In fact, Dick Cheney openly admitted that he ordered the clearance of the airplane parts. In fact, the planes used to haul the metal were U.S. Army warehouse planes. Cheney later indicated that he made the order to "out of respect to the victims." This makes no sense at all, does it?
(Parenthetically, Norm Pineta, the acting Secretary of Transportation on 9/11/01, testified before the 9/11 Commission under oath that he was in a room with Cheney when an Air Force valet came in and reported to Cheney that an unidentifiable "missile or plane" was en route to the Pentagon. This was after it was already known that planes had hit the World Trade Center. Secretary Pineta testified that Cheney ordered the valet to "stand down" and not act. The valet, in a state of understandable astonishment, asked for clarification and Cheney "snapped at him" (Pineta's testimony words) and told him that the order had not changed. We can ask: why? The American public didn't ask why really....and the press didn't ask why...but that doesn't make the question less poignant. But I digress.)
So if the executive branch made the decision to disrupt the crime scene we can conclude that either they were grossly negligent (not a great legacy) or that they benefited in some way by the disruption of the crime scene and the confiscation and disposal of crucial evidence. Oddly enough, as incompetent as many in that administration were, I tend to discard the grossly negligent option. Cheney is a very intelligent man. Moreover, there must have been some others in the sequence of decision to action that would have mentioned that the evidence was being disrupted. No, he knew. So how did he and the administration benefit?
The answer to that last question is: we don't know. It's unclear. We know for a fact that the only non-military plane flight allowed in the ensuing 24 hours was a private plane that transported several of the Bin Laden's in the US to Saudi Arabia based upon Bush's direct orders. We know for a fact that a cadre within the administration consisting at the top of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, was hellbent from the inauguration (and earlier) to invade Iraq. Could Cheney have seen the damage and noted a precious opportunity to parlay the national fervor into a focus on Iraq?
I would like to think that Cheney and his cronies had no malicious role in 9/11. However, even if one doesn't commit a murder, doesn't disrupting the murder scene and consciously removing evidence make you complicit in the crime in some way?
The airplane parts/metals are gone forever. They were briskly converted into scrap metal and sold overseas. No pictures are known to exist. The removal of the metal was done under military cover (i.e. no press, no cameras, etc.) in the midst of total chaos. The evidence is gone forever. But why? Someone knows. But until and unless that someone speaks up, we are stuck in the dark. I think we owe it to our nation and to the families of the victims and firefighters to know all there is to know about that horrid crime. Why didn't Cheney agree with me?
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